Chemonics had on Wednesday issued a press statement announcing cancellation of funding for production of the show after finding that contestants´ scores were manipulated by the organizer, Student Parliament: Redrawing Nepal (SPRN).[break]
The show was aired on Kantipur Television every Thursday from 9-10 pm and had Constituent Assembly member Sapana Malla Pradhan, constitutional expert Bhimarjun Acharya and senior journalist Yuvaraj Ghimire as judges. It was to select the top three leaders of the contest on Thursday, January 28.
The contestants organized a press conference on Thursday and demanded that the program should be taken to a logical conclusion, judges should make their views public on the issue, wronged contestants should be compensated and action should be taken against SPRN for irregularities.
The contestants were to be selected through equal weightage for jury´s evaluation and popular SMS votes.
The eliminated contestants produced records of SMS votes received and jury´s evaluation while selecting top 10 from 15 and pointed how two contestants were selected despite having the lowest combined points.
They also produced SMS records while selecting top 5 from 10 and showed two most popular contestants were eliminated and a person with the second lowest votes was selected.
Even host of the show Prasan Syangden and producer and director Suraj Jung Shah were present at the press conference and conceded that the organizers had unfairly eliminated some contestants to select their favored contestants. The duo had helped the contestants gather details of SMS votes and jury´s points.
Busan Prasain, who was rightly selected into top 10 (according to the records produced at the function) and then to top 5 (records showed he was third popular amongst 10), was also present at the function and conceded that some of his colleagues were unfairly eliminated.
SPRN did not return Republica´s call while Chemonics expressed inability to answer our queries Thursday. Chemonics refused to divulge the amount funded to SPRN for the show but the contestants claimed USAID, through Chemonics, had funded US$ 200,000 for the show in which the three judges had reportedly not taken any fee for their part.
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